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Since I retired two years ago, my attention has been divided among many things that have tugged at my heartstrings for years (which is why my blog posts are few and far between these days), like clean water, reducing plastic, knowledge-transfer sessions on various environmental topics, and writing. One of my favs is the work I’ve been doing at the Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association, and…

It’s 9:00 a.m. on a sunny spring day in May. Devin Winand, Deputy Director of the Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association (LSRA), Megan McCarthy, LSRA’s Community Engagement Coordinator, and Aaron Dixon, Program Coordinator for LSRA, gather at Long Level to greet a group of middle-schoolers. The kids scramble off the bus, excited to head down to the bank of Lake Clarke, so named because of its…

Red Rose Reuses, participating in a tabling event at Open Streets in Lancaster I always love the way the universe sends you the right people at the right time once you make up your mind about what it is you want to do. I met Melissa Snavely and her husband Doug when they presented a six-session class on plastics at F&M College in the spring of 2024. Having just retired, I was looking for…

Almost ten years ago to the day, I published Oil and Water under the moniker P.J. Lazos. At the time, I thought I was being clever, using my initials like J.K. Rowling did, and also, hoping to attract male readers by using a distinctly not-female name. I had spoken to a marketing executive before the book came out, and she saw my using my initials instead of my name as a distinction without a…

Photo credit, Karl Gibbons, Third-Eye Management In April, Melissa Snavely and I, co-directors of Red Rose Reuses, had the pleasure of presenting a talk on reducing single-use plastics. Red Rose Reuses originated under the umbrella of  College Park Climate Action Neighborhood (CAN), an affiliate of RegenAll. RegenAll is a local non-profit working towards carbon neutrality across business,…

A few months ago, I enjoyed a sneak peek tour of the new Stevens & Smith Center for History and Democracy, located on the southwest corner of the Marriott hotel at the corner of Prince and Vine Streets. The museum is comprised of what used to be two houses belonging to Congressman Thaddeus Stevens — his home and law office, and the adjacent Kleiss Brewery. The bones of the museum are now…

Sunset Beach, Cape May, NJ © pam lazos Pristine. The word means unspoiled, untouched, or as new, a quaint concept when describing the environment because there is almost no place left on earth that hasn’t been touched by man’s meddling. Today, freshwater supplies are more endangered than ever in human history. When only 0.5% of our freshwater is accessible and useable, and as of today, there are…

Version 1.0.0 According to the world’s leading astrologers, in 2025, mankind will make a paradigm shift that took 12,000 years to arrive, a “literal metamorphosis for us as humanity.” From the vantage point of utter chaos where we find ourselves sitting these days, it’s inconceivable that such a shift could even be possible. Yet, planetary activity suggests otherwise, with some predicting that…

John Naylor, a former Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association (LSRA) Board member and founder of Susquehanna Plastic Pick’n 1000 (SPP1K), has another idea for getting plastic out of the Susquehanna River. This one started with a conversation John had with Daryl Lehman at Double Blaze Painting after Daryl did some painting for John, which resulted in a $250 rebate. Rather than pocket the cash,…

The iconic film The Dirty Dozen debuted in 1967. The movie depicts a group of WWII soldiers –“twelve general prisoners, convicted by courts-martial and sentenced to serve lengthy prison terms,” i.e., Army criminals — chosen to parachute across enemy lines and assassinate high-ranking personnel under Hitler’s command. The group of us from the Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association that…

Among the leaf litter, we discover plastic as numerous as it appeared on the banks from a distance. We find bottle caps, spent lighters, shreds of plastic bags, and Styrofoam bits everywhere. We see broken bits of plastic, no longer reminiscent of the items of their origin. They are just bits of colorful plastic among the leaves, roots, and soil. A bird can’t fit a discarded Gatorade bottle in…

“We step gingerly and feel ahead before we press down firmly. When we kick an underwater object in the Flats, there are good odds that it might just be a radial tire. *** While we can’t agree on which fish are wanted, we can all agree that automobile tires have no business in this place. – Justin Mando, The Conejehola Flats, Part 2 We’re back with Part 2 of the Conejohela Flats, and oh, man, the…

My friend and colleague, Justin Mando, who serves on the Board of the Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper Association (LSRA) with me, has created a triptych of videos on the Conejohela Flats, a series of small islands and adjacent mudflats in the Susquehanna River which the National Audubon Society calls significant stopover points in the Eastern U.S. for shorebirds. The Flats are located in Clarke…

Hello, and Happy New Year! Nothing like hitting the ground running with a blog post on the first day of the new year. I have been a slacker for the last year, busy writing Bad Pharma, retiring from my day job and all the emotional shifts that come with retirement, switching from lawyering to writing as a primary career, and trying to live in a world that always seems to be tilting toward…

Clean water is a right. Consider donating today. Thank you!

This year will be the 13th annual ExtraGive in Lancaster County, benefitting over 400 non-profits and adding to the total of over $100 million in donor dollars given since the ExtraGive was established by the Lancaster County Community Foundation in 2012. Donations will be accepted from 12 a.m. on 11/22/24 until 11:59 p.m. that evening, when residents — and those who want to be Lancastrians — can…

The paperback and Kindle versions of Bad Pharma are now available on Amazon! Get your copy today and join the conversation at http://www.badpharmathebook.com or visit our Facebook page. When the physician overseeing a failed clinical trial is fired trying toprotect the health of the children enrolled, he subverts the system to save them,imperiling himself and those he loves most. The novel…

Hello, Friends. Well, it’s been a long four years of writing (and neglecting my blog) but Bad Pharma is almost here, and so I ask you, are you ready for your next great read? This Tuesday — 11/12/24 — Bad Pharma will be hitting the Amazon bookshelves. As writers, we all know this self-publishing thing is hard, but success comes when people share their book experiences with each other. I would be…